Friday Feels and Fancy Ticklers

On the 19^th, I made the decision to log out of Facebook, IG and Threads for at least a week. I also decided to opt out of the news. As strategies aimed at sanity-preservation go, I’m here to report this was one of my best.

Not only did I get a ton of work done without the distraction of social media and doom scrolling (mind you, there is an f-load of doom to scroll), I saved my psyche considerable angst.

Here were just a few of the ways I reinvested my time:

I immersed myself in high-octane laughs by reading Patrick Hutchison’s hilarious book, Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman, at times laughing so hard I worried I might cause myself actual physical harm. I hope we get to hear much more from Hutchison who I’ve proclaimed (to just about anyone who will listen) is the Bill Bryson of his generation.

I pondered the concept of Deep Work while reading Cal Newport’s, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. A book which proved an excellent companion to my social media and news detox. (Thank you to the refreshingly optimistic Evelyn Skye of Creative, Inspired, Happy for putting this book on my radar.) And as I said above—I truly DID accomplish more this week than I have in a while by weaning myself off those bright, shiny objects of technological distraction that for the most part, don’t do much of anything to enrich our lives.

I bade a fond Farewell, Pet (if you know, you know) to Vera, the beloved Ann Cleeves character brought to life exceptionally well for 14 seasons on ITV. Brenda Blethyn was sheer perfection as the grumpy, frumpy, Vera Stanhope, and even though I will miss her madly, I understand why 78-year-old Blethyn thought the time had come to gracefully bow out. (However, it should be said that Blethyn somehow managed to not age much past 60 during the 14 years she played the role.)

Cleeves is also responsible for the original Shetland (featuring DCI Jimmy Perez, not the new one) which has inspired me to go back to the books (I’ve read them all) to drill down on what it was about those characters that has managed to capture readers’ and audiences’ attention for all these years. Remarkable enough to have one such character, but unless you’re Agatha Christie, rare to have two.

I marveled at how bloody fortunate I’ve been to travel to all the glorious places I have, when I stumbled across Freezing Embrace, a mystery shot in a very small town in a remote region of Finland. When I first hit play, I thought the streets looked familiar—but how could that be? And then I realized that they looked familiar because I had indeed been to Porvoo, Finland! (You can’t believe how ridiculously happy that made me.) I watched every single episode, and am now a diehard Freezing Embrace fan!) The following are pictures I took of a church and bell tower that feature prominently in the opening credits.

And finally….because escaping the news for a week does not guarantee an escape from reality, I sang along with Gil Scott-Heron’s Winter in America….because that’s exactly what this is…and I can’t help but wonder if we’ll ever again see Spring….

Hoping you are finding ways to soothe your soul in these troubling times. And if you have any sanity saving strategies to share, I’d love to hear about them in the comments below.

With gratitude,

Diana